I See You, Baby
by IShipItAllAndThenSome
Summary: Or, Five Times An Avenger(and co.) Enjoyed Club Night And One Time They Will Never Go Back To That Club Again, Tony. Ships featured are Thorki, Phlint, pre-Science Bros, and pre-Captain Widow. This comes after all the current Marvel!verse stuff I've churned out so far. Rated M for everything. Just. Everything. Clothing barely remains on and a building gets broken.


**Note: I loathe this sort of music. It's kind of trashy, kind of sexist, kind of poorly-written (as most of it is the same line again and again and again and again _and again and again AND AGAIN AND AGAIN)_. But I have heard it fourteen times on different E4 and BBC shows(Being Human was one of them, which was hilarious, because there was an oblivious zombie dancing in a club) and it suddenly struck me:**

**AN IDEA!**

**Hope you enjoy.**

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_I See You, Baby: Or, Five Times An Avenger(and co.) Enjoyed Club Night And One Time They Will Never Go Back To That Club Again, Tony_

_1. Natasha_

Glass ceilings weren't so very big at SHIELD. There was no mobility beyond newbies and interns. People worked in jobs that suited them until they died in service or, rarely, retired. As such, one wouldn't expect much bias towards female agents.

Except many of them worked in jumpsuits or well-tailored pencil skirts and blazers, and being pretty fit, they tended to have pretty incredible physiques, which, apparently, meant they couldn't handle much more than file work and getting their asses pinched by the occasional intern or newbie who was never seen or heard from in government circles again.

Coulson had had to issue a memo eight times: _Fingers broken by Natasha Romanov are considered a non-liability. If she has broken your finger accidentally or unjustly, a formal apology will be issued and you will receive one week's paid vacation. If she was justified, SHIELD suggests you either keep your mouth closed or wear a mouth guard at all times._

She was attractive, yes. That didn't mean she was incapable of doing her job.

And being capable didn't mean she was incapable of wanting people to be attracted to her, but since the entire employee pool at SHIELD was either terrified of her or like family - which was beyond strange, in and of itself; family had never been anything beyond myth for Natasha growing up, because people who claimed to be family ran tests on you and forced you to fight to the death when you were seven and stole your blood and your soul and your childhood - and her life didn't lend itself to non-work long-term relationships, any possibility of consistent sex was shot, point blank, between the eyes.

Except Clint, who seemed incapable of sitting still without a bow in his hands, loved these places and dragged her out to them constantly.

She'd long since stopped wanting to resist.

Here, she was, quite frankly, the most attractive person in the room. And that included Captain проклятие America, who had somehow managed to look terrified, ashamed, and underaged.

Natasha was anonymous here - everyone was anonymous - and there was no chance of anything but a well-deserved good time. Here, she was the hot redhead in a blue dress and sky-high heels called Nadia Roman who had everyone mesmerized within seconds. No monsters to face, no codes to follow, no expectations, no op.

Anonymity suited her.

And if, perhaps, Steve's cheeks glowed brighter when she left the club with two someones and practically combusted when she returned an hour later with four hickeys(that he could see), well.

That was just a perk.

_2. Bruce_

Bruce was not, is not, will never be a party animal. The Other Guy kind of shot that horse in the face. But he liked having friends, liked being able to surround himself in people who, at the very least, weren't waiting for him to explode into a gigantic green A-bomb.

He wasn't prone to hiding in plain sight like Natasha, or to drinking himself numb like Tony, or people-watching and recording all the movement in his mind like Steve and his sketchpad, or to mindlessly thrumming to subwoofed music and sweeping himself away like Clint.

But his favourite part of Club Night - as routine as Movie Night(Thursday) or Family Dinner Night(Sunday) - was, after he'd managed to regulate his heartbeat, he would stand, invisible, and slide into the crowd. He sometimes danced, sometimes just ferried drinks back to their booth. What he did wasn't the point.

As he wove through the throng, invisible and harmless and small, people casually touched him - flirtatious hands on his back or his ass or his cheek, accidental feet on his toes or elbows in his gut - as if he was a person, too.

As if he wasn't a monster.

It was nice, surrounding himself with that sort of offhand contact and pretending.

_3. Steve_

Steve couldn't help but wonder, sometimes, how what was happening before him could be called dancing. Every conceivable body part pressed together, every possible act of sex and three of violence mimed out under a flickering rainbow strobe.

He didn't know the dances - something called _twerking_ seemed popular, but when he asked, SHIELD had put him in time out - and he didn't really want to learn them. His favourite couples were the ones who simply _were,_ swaying together and holding each other, as intimate and as safe as holding hands.

Rather, he sat in the booth with everyone's drinks and possessions, sketchbook in hand. The bodies were exposed and beautiful, and while Steve couldn't join in in a crowd which he dwarfed on a short day, he could capture the swim of muscle beneath flesh and fabric.

And, yes, maybe his drawings often focused on a certain redhead whose hips swayed with the centrifugal grace of a pendulum and who was nearly his height in her incredibly high heels, but she was a magnet. The entire club followed her with hungry hands and bodies and eyes, but Steve followed her with the etching rasp of graphite on paper.

As he watched her, he couldn't help but think of the last time he wanted to dance with someone so badly.

_Seven o'clock._

He hadn't made it, and he never could. Life was not a drawing to go back and correct with deft strokes of eraser, fixing mistakes as easily as they were made.

But, if he ever worked up the moxie to ask the right partner, well.

He just hoped she wore the heels. Like everything else, they were absolutely stunning on her.

_4. Clint(and co.)_

Big.

Big and loud and crowded.

Lights throbbing, bass pounding, Clint is constantly in motion here and totally, totally free. He's always loved clubs, the ease of them, the way people are somehow more trusting of a stranger when half of their movements are cut out by flickering strobes than in broad daylight.

After he'd left Barney and Trick, he'd spent about half of his nights in the homes of strangers he'd met across bars or pressed against his back, in warm beds with coffee in the morning and a shower.

But then, SHIELD came in, and Nat and Phil, and he had an actual home, somewhere stable and sure and solid, to return to - he had a routine. There were times when - despite the fact that when left unchecked, he was a perpetual motion machine - he had to be still and quiet and small.

He'd done it before, around his Dad, and his skin crawled for months when he'd first had to do it on an op.

But, hands on the smooth surface of his bow, string taut against his cheek and lip, he could stem his disgust and be what Phil needed from him until, eventually, all he felt was a duty and a purpose and a strange, bored pride.

Still, Clint was, by nature, big and loud and eager to be surrounded by people, by warmth. So, since he couldn't shout and move and exist at work - lives on the line, depending on him - he came here.

There were hundreds of 'here's all over New York, and once he stepped in, he could just crack down the middle and fill himself up with the noise and the colour and the heat, and he could be big and loud and crowded.

And at the end of the night, he'd seal himself up again, zip up his skin, and go back to seldom speaking, still as a statue. He was SHIELD's best sniper, and he was Phil's greatest acquisition. There were certain expectations to uphold, to surpass.

After three years of just working together - something Clint still didn't understand, how long it had taken for him to realise that Phil wanted him - and two months of being together, Clint decided it was high time he took Phil out on Club Night.

Anything to get Phil to stop working all the time.

Phil didn't think he'd like it, thought he'd look like someone's Dad, protested perhaps a little too much. Clint shrugged, stretching out his spine in one sinuous little slither, and dressed himself in impossibly tight jeans and a clingy sleeveless top before bending at the waist to tug on his boots.

Five minutes and a barely-concealed hickey later, Phil rasped, "Give me five minutes to get dressed, sweetheart."

Natasha had helped make sure he didn't look too professional, and Phil had taken to it like a duck to water. He was a regular at Club Night until he, very quickly, very _finally_, wasn't. Until he was gone.

Phil had been central, a lodestone, a home. Clint could be loud or quiet, still or practically vibrating, with Phil. He could be anything and anyone he wanted, every side of the die, and Phil loved every facet of him.

So, for a while, Clint sought to fill that massive chasm in him, prying himself wider so he could be filled with all the noise and heat and sweat of a nameless, faceless crowd. He was shaking, constantly, eyes wreathed in collapsing stars, and he never slept. Natasha, always the voice of cool logic, made him stop. So he veered in the opposite direction, burying himself in op after op, sleeping only as much as he needed to, and doing his best to never crack open.

After all, how could he split wide and bear the brightness when he had no one to sew him shut again at the end of the night?

But Phil was back now. He wasn't going anywhere. He'd promised, and Clint couldn't do anything but trust him; once they'd caught up with each other, chasing the weeks apart like starving dogs following the scent of a bone, and made up for lost time, relearning new scars and searching over lines they'd never really forgotten, Clint had slid out of bed and pulled on those same jeans, that same shirt, and squeezed Phil's hand. "C'mon. It's Club Night."

It was still big, still loud, still crowded. Clint, for the first time in months, split open; Phil's hands on his hips and the hard ridge of his scar against Clint's spine were enough to keep him grounded, and when the time came, he knew Phil would put him back together with only the best of memories.

_5. Thor(and co.)_

Hidden in a dark nook, Loki pressed his face into Thor's throat, feeling the rasp of his stubble along the planes and peaks of his face as he branded possession into his skin with deft tongue and sharp teeth. The angle was certainly awkward, with the Aesir hoisted up on Loki's slim hips, but neither minded.

Nobody knew here. They were one of approximately eight couples tangled up in corners here, with the exclusion of those who had crept out to alleyways or storage closets or bathrooms, and not a soul knew.

Here, Loki and Thor were nothing more than two admittedly attractive men who were, perhaps, a little too involved in finding as much of each other's skin as possible. Loki, as always, wore a fabricated skin to disguise himself, barely enough to remain unrecognized by the masses, and both were clad in standard Midgardian garb.

That, in and of itself, was no small mercy; it was almost more trouble than was worth it to reach beneath the Asgardian clothes they'd grown up in.

The traces of their Aesir trappings, too often, tended to be so. It was beyond disturbing, sometimes, to kiss someone who you had once called 'brother.'

The club throbbed with heavy, dirty beats and the air filled with lyrics to match:

_I see you, baby; shakin' that ass, shakin' that ass, shakin' that ass._

After the fourth time someone had tried to peek at one of them, as if the picture they made was for any and everyone to gawp at, Thor had hopped down and dragged Loki out into the throng of faceless, sweaty, inebriates by the wrist. "The purpose of this place is to dance, is it not?"

Loki grinned. He had always been fond of putting on a show, making a spectacle of himself to see others enjoy it. And in places like this, in situations nearly identical, Thor had always enjoyed himself.

Tonight was no different. Loki was always graceful, always fluid and distracting, and Thor was beyond gratified to have the privilege of fixing his eyes on his lover's hips as they undulated, serpentine, before him.

_I see you, baby; shakin' that ass._

"Come, darling," he hissed, spinning into Thor's solid chest and pressing lips to his ear. "I thought the purpose of this place was to dance."

_By the Norns, as indecent and decadent as it may be,_ Thor thought, following Loki into the heart of the pulsating mob, _I love Club Night._

_+1. Tony_

Tonight, Tony was very, very, very drunk.

And he had not had anything to drink in two weeks.

So, through Nature's path of pissing on everyone's happiness, his tolerance had dropped through the floor before he knew what had hit him.

_(When he asked the next morning, Bruce turned from the kitchen island, eyes tired and wreathed in shadow garlands, and said, "Six assortments of hard liquor and half of a ceiling.")_

Tony's tongue felt thick in his mouth, and his legs were as wobbly as a newborn calf's, and he slipped out of the booth and wove unsteadily through the crowd. He sort-of recognized a few blurry faces - there was the dangerous, tiny one, his mind supplied, with the red hair; there's the pretty-face guy and the other pretty-face guy, and they're all kinds of stupid-complicated; and there's Agent and Tweety; and there's the guy who's too old for his face. He liked them all well enough, but at this stage of inebriation, he usually went for his absolute favourite person and did something that made them hate him forever or climb into his bed and stay for a month.

"Bruuucey-bear!" he cheered, slumping onto the shorter man's shoulders, draping himself over Bruce like a scarf, like a yoke to bear. He always had been a burden.

Bruce's head whipped around, cheeks just barely flushed from the heat and the dancing, and his nose collided with Tony's. He looked like some sort of cartoon, eyes wide and startled, mouth only just barely open enough for Tony to feel him breathing - to feel how fast those breaths were coming, how hard. "How drunk - _Are_ you drunk?"

"Nope. 'M not drunk. You're jus' blurry." Tony grinned, worming one hand up Bruce's chest until he could tap the tip of his nose and, triumphant, shout, "Boop!" A little bead of sweat collected on the tip of his finger and he rubbed it into the pad of his thumb, like he was trying to scent himself.

"Tony, I think you need to sit down," Bruce finally managed, wrapping one arm around the engineer's waist. Tony just hummed, nuzzling his cheek, and relished the sinewy, steady warmth of his hand on his waist. Doctor hands, scientist hands, hero hands. Sad and strong and so very constant. He could feel the heady thud-thud-thud of Bruce's pulse, in his fingertips, in the bent plane of his wrist, just a little fast; he liked that. He liked thinking it was because of him.

"M... Maybe _you_ needa siddown," he retorted, grin far too pleased for the quality of his witty comeback.

"Okay, buddy. I'm gonna get the rest of us together, and Steve's gonna drive us home, okay?"

"Drives like a... like a granny! My cars is nicer'n that. Deserve only th'best of drag racin'." They wove through the crowd, Tony stumbling a little less for having Bruce hold him up. "I'm gonna fix... thingy. In your lab. 'S older 'n me. Deserve th'best, too."

Thud-thud-thud, faster now. Bruce was warmer against his side now, and Tony liked it. His blood pressure was always low, amphibious, and his circulation was total crap; something about the radiation revved up Bruce's metabolism and made him about eight degrees warmer, and Tony sometimes fantasized about curling up against Bruce and warming his frigid toes between the doctor's thighs.

He wanted Bruce scalding against him, sodium and water combusting and scorching the air with their cont. Leaning on Bruce's shoulder all the more heavily, Tony slid one hand into the back pocket of his jeans and squeezed, nipping at his jaw.

_Thudthudthudthud._

Tony grinned, feeling Bruce's heart pounding in his throat and filling up with pride for a few moments before he realized, sluggishly, that Bruce's heart was beating a little too fast.

Danger zone, Other Guy fast.

Bruce's clothes shredded as his usual wiry frame stretched into something solid and hard and deliciously huge, and that same bright chlorophyllic green bled over his skin. He jerked away from Tony, a sickeningly guilty look in his eyes, and accidentally threw one massive fist through the wall. The ceiling crumbled, and an unreasonably large chunk crashed into Tony.

Tony frowned. _This was decidedly not my plan_, he thought, swaying on his feet. The last thing he remembered was a sinewy, steady hand cupping him in its palm, like he was fragile and in need of protection, and a gravel-on-glass sound that may have been an apology.

The next morning, Bruce sat hunched over at the island, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and tried to apologize for Tony's mistake.

To Tony.

"String Bean, it was my miscalculation," Tony said, shrugging over black coffee. "So shut your mouth and drink your tea. I'll write them a reparations check."

Clint looked over at Tony from his dish-drying nest beside the sink. "We can't go back to that club ever again, Tony. And it's your fault."

"Yup!" Tony grinned, grabbing a blueberry from Bruce's plate and hucking it into the air. "We'll find a new one." He caught it in his mouth with a decisive clack that rang in his head like church bells, aching behind his temples and eyes. "And next time, I won't miscalculate."

With that, he strutted off to his lab to take a nap. Hangovers sucked.

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**I quite like this one. I'm a fan of the 5+1 format. **

**Also, I used references to the Hawkeye comics, which are absolutely divine, and should be read by all. And I used Hiddleson's "snake hips" dance for Loki, just a little. Because, come on. _Come on._**

**The song which inspired this little(almost 3500 word) fic, and whose lyrics are used in the Thorki section of this one shot, is called _I See You, Baby_ by Groove Armada and Fatboy Slim. Listen at your own risk; it's terribly catchy.**

**Review for snake hips.**


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